


Connected

by wss_holmes



Series: Connected [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Gen, Post-His Last Vow, Post-Season/Series 03, Sherlock AU, Soulmate identifying bracelets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-31
Updated: 2014-12-31
Packaged: 2018-03-04 10:53:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3065144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wss_holmes/pseuds/wss_holmes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every person receives a bracelet at ten years old, with the name of their soulmate on it. It's a shame John discovered who his is at the worst possible moment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Connected

**Author's Note:**

> Connected is the first fic in a series, Infringement is the sequel, so if you'd like to know how it ends, go and check out Infringement. 
> 
> To Bianca, the friend who inspired me to keep writing.

John never even thought twice about the bracelet, not now, not in this moment here on the Tarmac. All his energy and thought was solely devoted to quelling any rising tears or too-far-over-the-boundary words towards his companion. He didn't believe the bracelets, he didn't want them to be right. But John had received that bracelet the day he turned ten years old, and he stared at the name scrawled across it in golden eloquent cursive every day. Every person got a bracelet, identical to his, save the person's name. A black leather band, sleek and shiny, with someone else's name imprinted into it. 

This person was to be your soulmate. 

John hated these stupid silly bracelets. They actually expected him to believe that these bracelets were right? That's how he was taught, and he actually believed it up until a few years ago. 

That's when everything changed. 

That's when he met Sherlock Holmes. 

John knew he shouldn't argue with what the bracelet says, but something told him that 'William', whoever he was, wasn't right. That there must have been some kind of error, a misprint on his bracelet, assigned the wrong one, anything. Because he felt something unparalleled to anything he ever had felt before when he and Sherlock were close. Like now. 

The tension between the two of them, here on the Tarmac, was almost unbearable. Sherlock's long black coat enveloped his body and made those brilliant eyes stand out even more against his pale face. The gentle wind raked through his curly black hair and sent locks flying askew on to his forehead. Now, he clasped his gloved hands behind his back and turned to an indifferent looking Mycroft. 

"Since this is likely to be the last conversation I have with John Watson, would you mind if we took a moment?" 

John's heart sunk low into his chest. Last. How could he say that so casually? John hated that word and every variant of it, they have such negative connotations. The last hug, the quick glance back before the person disappears out of sight, the final goodbye. That's it, that's all they did now, was say goodbye. John's mind flashed with the memory of Sherlock plummeting from 10 stories up, his coat flourishing and waving about him. John shook it away quickly, for fear of letting his guard down. 

Mycroft turned his head to his brother, eyebrows raised in surprise. Why should he be surprised? With a slight parting of his lips, Mycroft's expression changed to one of understanding of things unspoken. After a nod of his head, he and everyone else left John and Sherlock alone on the Tarmac, facing not only each other, but the heartbreaking task of trying to decide which words would be their last exchanged to each other. John was finally the first to break the silence. 

"So... here we are."

Sherlock locked his gaze on John, but John's eyes wandered about aimlessly around the airfield. He hoped desperately that the awkward quiet wouldn't persist again. Clearing his throat, John took the slightest step closer, wanting to finally just close the gap between them, once and for all. 

"William Sherlock Scott Holmes," he said, reiterating his own name with care. 

John furrowed his eyebrows and finally met Sherlock's stare. His striking green eyes reflected a difficult-to-sustain composure, his true despair shining through from the very back of his eyes.

"Sorry?" John questioned. 

"That's the whole of it— if you're looking for baby names." 

John's bracelet felt like it was burning a hole into his wrist. William? Sherlock's name... was William? All these years.... he hadn't even thought about Sherlock's full name. Should he say something? John had no clue, Sherlock had never let him see what his bracelet said. There was a chance they were different; that's what he was taught. Words escaped John's mind, leaving it barren of any thought or expression. The silence became too much to bear. John let out a far-too-long, awkward chuckle. 

"A-alright..." 

Sherlock, unsure of what to do, simply nodded slowly. Neither of them could hold the gaze of the other for longer than a second, electing instead to let their eyes wander aimlessly about the airfield. John's fists clenched and unclenched over and over behind his back. How? How could this happen to him? John's eyes instinctively snapped to Sherlock's hands, kept hidden behind his back, his fingers no doubt wrapped delicately around his thin wrist. Silence persisted, the air between them growing heavier and heavier, shutting themselves off from one another. 

"Yeah..." John said vaguely, his eyes meandering about the wide plain of bright green grass. 

They finally landed on Sherlock's bright, illuminated face, and it took all his strength not to fall to his knees, and beg the Earth and sky not to let him go and to never let him leave his side. 

"Actually, I can't think of a single thing to say," he said, keeping his eyes fixed on Sherlock, who met his gaze for only half a second before looking down at the ground again.

"No, neither can I," Sherlock said, furrowing his eyebrows at the ground beside him. 

Lowering his tone, John took one cautious step towards his companion. 

"The game is over," he said, skillfully stopping his voice from cracking. 

Sherlock lifted his head to John, a firm and determined look in his eye. Each word he subsequently spoke reflected the utmost belief in what he said. 

"The game is never over," Sherlock assured him. In a fraction of a second, his tone and expression softened. "There may be some new players, though, that's alright." 

Meeting each other's gaze left a smile on their faces, however small. John looked down to his feet, as if they would tell him what to do and how to go on. Clearing his throat, he finally lifted his head to Sherlock, who had never looked away. 

"So what about you then? Where are you actually going now?" John ventured, almost cautiously, afraid deep down of the answer. 

Sherlock's stunning green eyes shifted to a fixed point just above John's head. 

"Oh, some undercover work in Eastern Europe," Sherlock said, his voice flat and bored. 

"For how long?"

Movement caught John's eye and he glanced down to see Sherlock's wrists wriggling and writhing behind his back. 

"Six months, my brother estimates. He's never wrong," Sherlock said quietly, keeping his eyes fixed above John's head. 

"And then what?" John questioned, watching Sherlock carefully. 

Sherlock's eyes shot down to finally reciprocate John's stare. His lips disappeared as he pursed them, his eyes becoming glassy. With just a look, they both knew. Sherlock wasn't coming home. Not in six months. Not in one year. Not even in ten years. This was a death mission he was being sent on. Kamikaze. Sherlock dismissed it with a shrug of his shoulders. 

"Who knows?"

John nodded and turned away to look across the airfield again, breathing in deeply. Sherlock looked directly at him until he turned back, then looked down again.

John's heart felt heavy in his chest. Dead. Sherlock Holmes. Dead. Surely he must have misinterpreted his stare? His expression? Anything... anything to prevent him from being right... The silence dragged on and on, for how long, John didn't know. His head was spinning and he felt sick to his stomach. It was all he could do to not yell "fuck you cruel world!" at the top of his lungs and disintegrate into manic sobs beside Sherlock's feet. What about the bracelet? John felt like chucking it into a fire and watching as the leather and metal melded into one. The movement behind Sherlock's back caught John's eye again. What about Sherlock's bracelet? What did it say? Over and over, on countless nights where John lounged about in his bed, sleep evading him, he pictured his name perfectly stamped across the chrome of the band. The golden writing glittering in the sun and throwing out rays of light in all directions. John could imagine it there, hiding behind Sherlock's back right now, just out of reach. Shifting his weight, Sherlock snapped John out his delusions. His low, deep, and gentle voice broke the silence. 

"John, there’s something ... I should say; I-I’ve meant to say always and then never have. Since it’s unlikely we’ll ever meet again, I might as well say it now..."

Sherlock hesitated for a long moment, staring at the ground beside his feet. John twisted his lips and watched him. This all seemed very.... odd. I mean surely he wasn't going to.... but then again, what if he did? What then? Sherlock was a dead man walking, his soulmate would be dead within the year. But what if John wasn't Sherlock's soulmate? John squinted his eyes to the blinding daylight, never looking away from his soulmate. They should be soulmates. Together. But John knew deep inside that they would never ever be that way. Locked in each other's arms, laughing at the same dumb jokes, counting as many constellations as they could in the boundless night sky, spending Friday nights with a bottle of wine and a far-too-many-piece jigsaw puzzle. Because death is the only thing that could have ever kept John from Sherlock.

And now it was here. 

The moment. 

Sherlock inhaled deeply and lifted his eyes to John. This was it. 

"Sherlock is actually a girl's name." 

No. 

No. 

No. 

No, this wasn't how it was supposed to go, this was all wrong, this was not the perfect life he had envisioned. 

With Sherlock. 

John immediately turned his head away and let out a laugh that was far too quick and far too fake. A corner of Sherlock's mouth pulled up into the saddest smile ever to grace anyone's lips. Shaking his head, he finally looked back to Sherlock. 

"It's not," John said, feeling a lump forming at the back of his throat. 

Sherlock gave a loose and nonchalant shrug of his shoulders. 

"It was worth a try." 

Dear God, why was this happening to him? Of everyone in this whole universe, why him? John blocked out everything from his view except Sherlock. A passenger jet could have crashed 300 yards from them and John never would have even glanced away from the electrifying and enchanting green orbs encompassing his pinhole thin pupils. The silence was growing again and absorbing them both. John chuckled under his breath, but it came out choppy and forced. The movement of Sherlock's wrists came again, but John didn't look down at them. Slowly, Sherlock's bare right hand extended out to John.

In a low and gentle voice, he said, "To the very best of times John..." 

John looked down at Sherlock's hand, his fists clenching at his sides. There it was. Peaking out from just underneath his coat sleeve. His eye caught sight of the gold imprint, immediately spotting an eloquent gold loop. Perhaps made by a J? If he could just see it a little bit more...

Before he even knew it, John's hand had extended outward to meet Sherlock's. Their hands met in the center and suddenly nothing else mattered to John except the warm body he was connected with. This wasn't a handshake. This was a connection. A few moments passed and neither one of them actually shook the other's hand, they just held it there, as if frozen in a picture. Sherlock shook John's hand once, just once, and his coat sleeve thrashed up. It was completely revealed. All of it, his entire bracelet. It was exactly like John had pictured it. Golden writing glittering in the sun and throwing out rays of light in all directions. But... what did the writing say...? John narrowed his eyes at the chrome on the band. With a sharp inhale he quickly lifted his gaze to Sherlock, who had been carefully watching him the whole time. 

No. 

No. 

No. 

The light beamed from a cursive J, then emitted brightly from the beautiful letter O, shining against an elegant H, ending finally on a stunning N. 

John. 

Sherlock made no mention of it, he didn't even allude to it. He made his expression purposely oblivious. One final shake of John's hand. 

And then that was it. 

The connection was broken. 

Severed. 

Forever.


End file.
